While they've got a really great opportunity to beat Amazon by being more open with their content, something tells me they're going to screw it up royally with DRM.
Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
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Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#12I bought a refurb Kindle 2 29 days ago and am a click away from returning it and pre-ordering a Nook. I haven't bought any books on the Kindle yet (I'm working through a copy of Atlas Shrugged I downloaded, a book I own and isn't available in Kindle format), but it struck me that if I had, those books would be completely useless on the new reader and not only that, I can't sell them or give them away.
The publishers are going to go through the same process the music industry went through for 7-10 years and hopefully we'll eventually have DRM free books. The difference between books and music is that while someone might want to listen to a particular song out of their thousand song library at any given time, it's much more unlikely that someone would like that kind of random access to their books. I just hope DRM will only be an annoyance and won't sabotage eBook reader adoption.
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#13I assume those of us living in the ice covered wasteland to the North will never get this.
I don't see a lot of Barnes and Nobles in my neighbourhood.. so I'm guessing that would be a "yes".
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#14While they've got a really great opportunity to beat Amazon by being more open with their content, something tells me they're going to screw it up royally with DRM.
Both Amazon and B&N are distributors. That means publishers are their customers too, and they're a hell of a lot more fickle about DRM/no-DRM than those who buy books... hence, B&N has a lot of publishers to lose by including weaker DRM than the Kindle.
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#15The responsive color screen has a lot of potential. If one could have a "Cover Flow" style browsing mode, this would make the Nook a 10X better device for browsing reference material and other kinds of not-purely-linear reading. Others on HN have lamented the lack of "flippability" in other e-readers. This could be used to provide exactly that! (The other thing: will B&N allow it to happen?)
> this would make the Nook a 10X better device for browsing reference material and other kinds of not-purely-linear reading. Sure, but it seems pretty useless for just plain regular reading.
Right, but so's the keyboard on the Kindle, which takes up about the same amount of space.
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#16According to http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/nook-official/ , wifi only works in B&N stores. If that is the case, it can't compete with Kindle 2 internationally. Can anyone confirm this?
That seems to contradict the wording on B&N. “Browse eBooks, magazines and newspapers on AT&T's 3G Wireless Network or on Wi-Fi. And every Barnes & Noble has free Wi-Fi, so you can connect at lightning fast speeds.” Sounds like B&N is just marketing their Wi-Fi hotspots as a convenience, but it doesn’t need to be their hotspots; any Wi-Fi connection should do.
Yes they even sell this as an advantage over the Kindle - you can connect anywhere in the world that has wifi.
It doesn't seem to do WEP/WPA so you are a bit limited to connect everywhere
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#17Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#18To me this whole Nook thing feels like a "shock and awe" campaign from B&N to take steam away from the Kindle and to their credit it seems to be working.
Personally, I'm skeptical they will be able to pull it off. They have a feature list a mile long (touch screen, eink display, wireless, wifi, etc) and I'd be shocked if things worked even 1/3 as well as they are advertising in their press releases, but I will reserve judgment for when it is finally released in November.
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#19I bought a refurb Kindle 2 29 days ago and am a click away from returning it and pre-ordering a Nook. I haven't bought any books on the Kindle yet (I'm working through a copy of Atlas Shrugged I downloaded, a book I own and isn't available in Kindle format), but it struck me that if I had, those books would be completely useless on the new reader and not only that, I can't sell them or give them away. The publishers…
To me that random access is the killer feature itself. What other benefit would I have from using an ebook reader if not to carry around my whole library instead of just the book I am currently mainly reading.
Re: Introducing Nook, the most advanced ebook reader
#20I bought a refurb Kindle 2 29 days ago and am a click away from returning it and pre-ordering a Nook. I haven't bought any books on the Kindle yet (I'm working through a copy of Atlas Shrugged I downloaded, a book I own and isn't available in Kindle format), but it struck me that if I had, those books would be completely useless on the new reader and not only that, I can't sell them or give them away. The publishers…
The purported "loan to a friend" feature of the Nook does sound a bit Zune-like. It's unlikely that there will be a DRM free approach, but I've seen notably less hacking on the Amazon format than on AAC. Perhaps since the decryption doesn't happen on a general purpose computer, it's harder to crack. Or maybe crackers don't read books?